It's THAT day!!!

     "Oh, I've been missing you, and the way you make me feel inside...."
                                                                 -Gregory Abbott


    Finally, SWMBO and I can stop looking homeless.

    Winter here in Southern Ontario is a time of slumber for our vessels, stored on the hard, and, for sailors, a season of  dirt-stranded planning , forethought, and inevitable procrastination...

....  which means all the jobs that SHOULD have gotten done during the depths of winter get compressed into a frenzied fortnight of forced labour leading up to splash day....

... which means every spare minute is spent in the Bridge Yachts boatyard, punching through all the planned punchlist projects that were  pushed off by the punishing winter...

.... which means that one is always travelling with a vehicle packed full of tools, work clothes, paint, epoxy, generator, ladders, wood...

... leading uninitiated onlookers to wonder if we are indeed living in our Ford.

  As usual, we fell prey to mission creep.

We knew we wanted to remove the carbuncle, a dead depth through-hull transducer installed ahead of the keel:

   Which we did.  Beveled, backed, filled, and faired...

  While slathering on eleventy-seven coats of Interprotect 2000, we realized that this would be a good time to repaint the blue boot stripe, which clashed with the bottom paint, and if we're going to do that, we might as well removed the worn cove stripe...

... which we did, and then realized that, without a cove stripe, NextBoat's already generous freeboard looks beyond generous- it looked like Liberal spending in the 905 prior to an election.

...So clearly a new cove stripe was in order in addition to the boot stripe:

Since we're changing colours, red bottom paint is out, black bottom paint is in...

  with the stripes and the bottom looking good, it behooves us to clean and wax and buff the hull and make it all shiny.  Which we did.  Leaving us to finish installing the head, hoses, pumps, tank, new hose clamps on cooling hoses, and a list of more unsexy nobody-will-ever-see it stuff the night before we splash.


   We got it done, and NextBoat is now hullwet.

   NextBoat is also no longer NextBoat.

   Before:

  Now.  Please meet Karma:

The weather was nothing but cooperative in the weeks leading up to launch.  The last two weeks have been dry, sunny  and warm, culminating with HOT weather during the last few days before Karma  was launched...


....which ended the moment she began her transit from the yard to the Dock.

   
     (Frank and Lorraine were on hand to watch and take pictures)

By the time Karma  and I passed under the lift bridge, the clouds had rolled in, and long sleeves had been donned.  We figured we'd get the boom hung and sails bent on at the Dock, rather than waiting another half hour for the next bridge opening.
 

   
   (Okay, she ain't pretty, but she's purposeful)
  It was a prudent move.
 
    By the time we had cleared the river mouth and made the turn to port to the marina cut, the temperature had dropped and the wind had picked up.

     After tying her up safe in our slip, we realized rigging could wait.

  Within minutes the winds picked up, the temp plummeted and we were deluged.

   It hasn't warmed up since.

   No matter. We're back in the water, where we belong.

   We're home.






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